Making stuff and pootling in the garden

handmade baby clothes

My very lovely friend Laura (who blogs over at Circle of Pine Trees) gave birth to her third son recently. I wanted to make something nice for him. (I also wanted it to be ready on time, but you know how that’s going to end, don’t you?)

Before my sproglet was born, I came across this wonderful free pattern at Made by Rae for what might be, quite possibly, the cutest baby trousers in the world. They were so adorable that I thought I’d try the pattern again for Laura’s new baby.

Awww, seriously ickle

He’s baby number three, so I thought he deserved three pairs. Plus, I couldn’t quite settle on which of these fabulous fabrics would be best, so I decided to go for all of them.

This one is a Liberty fabric from the V&A quilts exhibition. I know Laura saw the exhibition, and likes Liberty print as much as I do, so I’m pretty sure she’ll like these. (Let’s face it, clothes for a newborn baby are really for their Mum, aren’t they?)

Everything, but everything looks nice in Liberty fabrics

I made these rocket men into a burp cloth last year and liked the fabric so much I immediately bought some more. It’s been sitting in my stash since then and this seemed like the perfect project.

Little space children, off to explore the 1950s moon…

And I can’t quite remember where these red elephants were from, but I do think it’s nice to have boys not only in blues, so this was added to the mix.

Of course, since they were made by me, all of these trousers are far from perfect.

I decided to sew a French seam for the crotch seam because hey, I watched Sewing Bee and I now know what a French seam is I thought it would be less scratchy on the baby’s legs.

Is that a french seam I see before me?

This was a definite case of a little knowledge being a bad thing. When making this decision, I totally forgot that babies tend to be wearing this little thing called a nappy most of the time, and therefore the likelihood of a seam scratching their bottom is pretty slim.

In fact, all the French seam did was add extra sewing time, make the waistband a little too tight and make the crotch area needlessly bulky.

Bulk, bulk, bulk.

Of course, the sensible thing would have been to make one pair of trousers completely and then go on to the next one, in which case I wouldn’t have repeated the french seam mistake. But I didn’t do that. I did each part on all three trousers at once, like my very own little assembly line. So the bulky seams are in all three…

I also decided to use a white thread for all the seams, which I thought would look quite nice and contrasting to the busy fabrics. Unfortunately, this rather showed off my wibbly sewing and the way I haven’t cut the pattern pieces out very intelligently. Ah well, the baby won’t notice.

Wibbly seams and unintelligent fabric cutting have these little elephants marching off a cliff…

Despite the flaws, they’re pretty sweet and diddy, aren’t they?

And Laura sent me the cutest photo of them in use by baby E yesterday. Such adorable feet!

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Hello hello, lovely to see you, thanks for stopping by my blog. I'm Sabrina: crafter, gardener, writer and inveterate waffler. This blog is where I share my makes, garden plans and somewhat half-arsed attempts to channel Tom and Barbara and live the Good Life in London.

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